-
Five: Where “Deep Streams Flow, Endlessly Renewing”: Metaphysical Religion and “Cultural Evolution” in the Art of Agnes Pelton
- Indiana University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
f i v e Where “Deep Streams Flow, Endlessly Renewing” Metaphysical Religion and “Cultural Evolution” in the Art of Agnes Pelton Nat h a n R e e s In 1932, Agnes Pelton (1881–1961), a moderately recognized artist who made a living painting landscapes and portraits, surprised her family and friends by moving across the country, at the age of fifty, to a small town in the inland California desert. There she hoped to find new inspiration for her abstract paintings, images that she referred to as her “especial light message to the world.”1 Pelton conceived of her modernist paintings as more than just experiments in formal composition, seeing them as expressions of her own religious convictions— she maintained that her art had the potential to elevate humanity by directly conveying spiritual knowledge. Pelton’s theory of an ideal aesthetic for religious art, framed by her study of Theosophy and related systems of belief, provides insight into the significance of metaphysical religion in American modernism. Beyond inspiring formal innovation , Theosophy provided artists with specific religious interpretations as they addressed contested contemporary social issues. Theosophists promoted racial and religious equality, worked against the colonialist suppression of Asian religions, and advocated a new, synthetic system that would incorporate beliefs and practices from traditions around the world. In the United States, metaphysical writers lauded Native Americans, asserting that they pos116 “Deep Streams Flow, Endlessly Renewing” 117 sessed ancient wisdom with power to liberate Western culture from the bonds of scientific materialism. Pelton actively participated in this discourse, painting images that interpreted Native Ameri can cultural practices in metaphysical terms, synthesizing elements from American Indian and metaphysical religions. Her work also conveys the Theosophical belief that as the religion of the new age developed, the vari ous traditions from which it appropriated would gradually diminish. Theosophists in the early twentieth century were not immune to the pervasive influence of contemporary theories of “cultural evolution,” which tied advancement to industrial progress. Metaphysical writers anticipated that “ancient ” cultures would disappear by being absorbed into a universal modern society as civilizations evolved. Although Pelton’s references to Native Ameri cans in her work seem superficially celebratory, they reflect Theosophy’s deep ambivalence toward non- West ern religious traditions. Pelton lauded the ancient wisdom she believed American Indians maintained, but her abstractions depict a world evolving toward a new age, relegating actual contemporary Native Ameri cans to the past. Pelton’s abstract paintings reflect the synthetic character of her beliefs. Future (1941; fig. 18), for example, portrays a metaphysical narrative unfolding in the Southwest desert. The night sky, pulled back like an open curtain, reveals two stone pillars, energized by bolts of red and blue electricity. Hovering in the far distance, above a mountain peak, four patches of brilliant light open into a realm of intense white. Pelton described the work in her notes as a “kind of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ through darkness and oppression, across a stony desert,” leading ultimately to “windows of illumination.”2 By invoking John Bunyan’s seventeenth-century text, Pelton related her image to an exceptionally familiar trope in Ameri can art and literature, but reworked the terms of the narrative to express her metaphysical perspective. For Pelton Future is an allegory of the spiritual journey from the darkness of materialist doubt to the revelatory radiance of metaphysical religion. Pelton’s search for illumination began when she was first exposed to metaphysical religious literature as a young art student. Her teacher at the Pratt Institute in New York, Arthur Wesley Dow, interpreted Asian art in terms derived partly from Theosophy, and advocated “synthesis” as the ultimate goal of all artistic endeavor.3 Pelton began a serious study of Theosophy and related metaphysical belief systems, eventually participating in an association headed by Will Levington Comfort called the “Glass Hive.” Introduced by a [44.202.90.91] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 16:43 GMT) 118 Nathan Rees mutual friend, Pelton traveled to Pasadena, California, in 1928 and spent eight months with the group. Comfort was an ardent advocate of the value of work, and conceived of the hive as an ideal metaphor for a community of shared work with shared rewards. The work that his participants engaged in, however, was mostly literary and artistic, and the reward that he expected was increased spiritual knowledge with the potential to improve the social and physical condition of humanity.4 For Pelton, the experience of creating and viewing art...